


twin size mattress

by eldritchbee



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Destruction of Gallifrey (Doctor Who), Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Introspection, Other, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23814433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritchbee/pseuds/eldritchbee
Summary: In trying to forget, in trying to pretend she was back at step one, fresh as a newborn babe, untouched by the horrors the others had seen, she’d given him an in. Pretending it never happened meant pretending she’d never learned, after all. Like him. Over and over again, cheating death, the both of them.--Just after Spyfall, when the Doctor visits the (new) ruins of Gallifrey, she forces herself to remember. "You bring out the worst in me, don't you?" (ignorance is not bliss.)
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	twin size mattress

**Author's Note:**

> The pronouns in this are gonna fuck somebody up I just know it. I refer to Thirteen and Missy as "she" and every other Doctor and Master as "he". When speaking as a collective, they're "they".

_she hopes i'm cursed forever  
to sleep on a twin sized mattress  
in somebody's attic or basement my whole life  
never graduating up in size to add another  
and my nightmares will have nightmares every night _

* * *

(you wait a moment, doctor. let’s get it right.)

She had hoped with this new, younger body, she could go back to be who she wanted to be. Bright colors and casual clothing, laughter and smiles, kind and never cruel, never cowardly, never -

_(would never even leave her worst enemy behind in the hands of monsters, with a face that those monsters love to hate)_

and Gallifrey was back. And her sins were washed clean from her. All those old, old men before her (some of them young) had done the suffering, had done the penance, had lost people, had felt the guilt and self loathing and that ultimate feeling of being _alone, all alone, the only one of my kind_ , all so she wouldn’t have to. She could be the blank slate, the Thirteenth life that never should have happened. Back to the start.

And then she let Grace’s life slip from her fingers.

_(and then it all went downhill from there, didn’t it, Doctor?)_

_(thought that was the last time, didn’t you? the last life.)_

But when she sets the fam back down on earth, and gives in to his voice whispering in the back of her head, she realizes how naive those thoughts were. 

It’s gone. Gone again.

And all that anger, building up from the man she thought was a friend, from his reveal, from the way she almost lost Graham and Ryan and Yaz again, from the sight of nothing but _desolace desolace desolace_ from a world she’d wanted so badly to fix, busts from her chest like a dam. She screams, and screams and screams and digs her hands into the dead soil and throws stones at the cold golden monuments left behind. 

(never be cruel)

_i’m glad i left you there_

(never be cowardly)

She wants to smash her head against the golden pillars of Gallifrey. Become someone else, become anyone else, just so the her right now wouldn’t have to witness this. And how did she do it, the last time, with the War Doctor? How did _they_ -

she can't allow herself to forget these things. Lessons from their past.

(hate is always foolish, love is always wise)

And yet time and time again, whenever she chose to love him again, he turned around and tore everything down around her. He’d cradled him in his arms, begging him not to die, to leave him alone, and the Master won. And when Missy turned around to save him, he shot her, and she won again. And now, now, even after she’d ripped off his masks and thrown him to the wolves, the love she’d had for _(what?)_ him? Gallifrey? themselves? made her want nothing more than to rip into him again and again, until she has _him_ on his knees, until she rips out every last life in him and watches it dissipate into the air without a care. (She could do it, become someone else, kill two birds, as they say.)

(that’s not something _we_ should say)

(ah, who was that? the tenth? the eleventh? someone else? another face that should be theirs that she hardly recognizes at all?)

(you mustn’t tell anybody your name)

_(so only i can know it. so only i can whisper it in your ear. so only i can have that control. your name and your love and your hate and your cruelty and your cowardice, that’s all mi -)_

(except for children)

(he’d told him when they were children. boys together.)

_(everyone thought you were so_ special. _)_

(and i thought _you_ were special. that’s why i told you, that’s why. you, and my spouses and my children and my grandchildren, you were there with them in my hearts. you were always -)

_(bum bum. bum bum.)_

(laugh hard. run fast.)

Screams turn to laughter, tears, and she falls with exhaustion on the steps of the citadel. She doesn’t know how long she’s there. Time has never been anything but a suggestion to the people who reside - who _used to_ reside - here. But, still, after some _time_ , her TARDIS vworps into the space next to her, the good old girl ready to support her she needed. The box doesn’t need to speak to express herself, but the Doctor still presses her cheek to the wood in order to hear the vibrations inside. She knew better, didn’t she? That some dreams were unattainable.

In trying to forget, in trying to pretend she was back at step one, fresh as a newborn babe, untouched by the horrors the others had seen, she’d given him an _in_. Pretending it never happened meant pretending she’d never learned, after all. Like him. Over and over again, cheating death, the both of them.

_(you and i_

_will never learn)_

She pulls herself up with the TARDIS as support, mumbling her last incarnation’s lessons softly. Over and over. She’s seen death like this before, she’s seen cruelty and slipped before, she’s _become_ it. She’s feigned ignorance, innocence, godliness, and weakness. (She’s _become_ it.) And yet she can’t forget ( _always_ forgets), can’t forget again.

(laugh hard. run fast.)

(be kind.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts I had writing this: "God I know I'm fucking up SOME Doctor Who canon, but you know what, so do the writers of Doctor Who."
> 
> My initial desire was to write a Doctor/Master fic during "The Timeless Child" but it turned into this instead. I'm setting this up as chapter 1 out of 2 for if I do ever get around to that second idea, but who knows. Anyway, song is "Twin Size Mattress" by The Front Bottoms. Welcome to hell.


End file.
